I so agree with the video thing. This medium is exploding in popularity and it just makes sense that when they can see and hear a person, it means so much more. The way the video blogger carries themselves, voice inflections, etc are leaps and bounds better than plain text.

I haven’t commented in many months but wanted to say that I still read your site daily and have always appreciated the time & effort that you put into every aspect of your knowledge sharing posts… good stuff.

I’ve read some constructive criticism here concerning your video and would like to add that I personally enjoy reading your site over watching it. My only concern with video is that if you’re anything like me you will spend more time creating a vid than you will on a written post – especially if you want to cover all the angles.

If you decide to pursue it then best to you, I know you always tackle each project with a professional tone and I’m sure it will be worth it.

I would agree with some of the other comments here that it would also be nice to have a text version or synopsis of the video too. All in all – I would rather READ the information instead of viewing it. Hope this input helps.

It’s not very great idea to post videocasts in this blog. You blog read a lot for people and for some of them (and for me too) english is’nt native language. I can read english well but it’s vely difficult for me listening english.
Moreover, my internet channel isn’t so fast for displaying smooth video ;(
Will be better to have at least text version of you posts together with videos.

Darren,
I came across your site about a month ago and really enjoy reading it. I haven’t started a blog yet, but I get a wealth of information here everyday. The video showed a side of your personality that we wouldn’t see otherwise. So while we all enjoy the written word, I hope that everyonce in awhile you will decide to use this method of communication.

When you are sitting down in front of your computer for hours and you know your eyes are about to fail, it’s just great to come back to a site you know & trust, just before your eyes are about to kick the bucket, that you can click on video and just listen to sound advise. Thank you Darren!

Darren,
Great idea and great video. I also prefer reading, but being able to see and hear the blog owner gives a site a whole new, more personal dimension that I think can only increase your individuality and make a stamp on your readers.

Thanks for the tips! I like the video format, too. IMO, you should host it on YouTube and embed it on your site. This will instantly put it in the “A-stack” (with all of your site-driven views) and allow it the chance to get significant viewership from people who discover it on YT (from “most viewed” searches) and would not have otherwise even known about your site.

I found the Time-On-Site stat very interesting. How are you getting your 30 secs to 2 mins figure? I study my T-O-S as a very important metric (second only to pageviews) and have gotten mine up to about 12m30s per visit. But admittedly, mine is not the typical blog.

I just wanted to tell you that video can be a positive experience, blog wise.

After reading this post, I went out to my garden with my MacBook Pro as my dig video camera (also my Canon 30D), and shot a video tour of it.

I posted it up to my blog (which is pretty new – http://www.humblegarden.com/2007/07/30/new-version/ ) and also set up accounts at various podcast sites like youtube, yahoo, podcast alley, itunes, etc). I use wordpress and I used the podPress plugin, makes it VERY easy. I used iMovieHD and Podcast Maker in the production. Its not a Dino De Laurentis production but its a beginning! I do not know if people like it but it does have promise.

This has driven some traffic and a lot of new subscribers to the blog feed.

Darren-
I really enjoyed listening to your video. Although I don’t know how many of these I would watch on a regular basis. I think I was encouraged to watch for two reasons. First, the new design put it front and center. Secondly, I was curious.

The nice thing about the video for me was the personal touch. A much different experience than reading your material. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know if I would watch video on a regular basis if they were not somehow more important or special. As many of the other comments mentioned I like to pick and choose my content.

Hey Darren, Really nice site, I love the redesign and thanks for the bolgging tips.

I think if I had a message for other bloggers it would be, yes, be professional, build a killer site, and write amazing articles, but also… “Have Fun”… Remember that first article you wrote? How you had a lump in your throat when you clicked the Publish button? Or how about how you felt, when you received that first comment? I do, and I hope those feelings never go away. I love blogging; I hope I never lose that feeling. Keep up the great work.

I may be alone in this, but depending on the subject matter, some people might be surprised that the owner of a site is a woman, or of a certain race, or a certain size, etc.

As you may know by now (from previous posts), I own a staffing firm, and for 16 years I have been coaching people (of all races and levels of professionalism) on how to get jobs. Now that I am promoting my controversial career books, “25 Reasons Why I Won’t Hire You!” and “25 Reasons Why THEY Won’t Hire You!”, I have to wonder if physical characteristics would come into play for some people doing video clips on a blog.

For example, I experienced a slump in book sales when I put my picture on my book site. Hmmm….

Darren, you have a very good stage presence. Infinitely better than most.

However, I agree with the comments about this particular video not being an effective use of the medium. I’d imagine that most of the visitors to your blog are reasonably fast readers and skimmers. If you’re fast with a keyboard then simple text is a win-win for you and your readers.

The language/verbal center of the brain handles serial (one chunk at a time) information. When verbalization is the best way to convey your message, use text. So a person verbalizing into a camera is (by my criteria) not an effective use of video.

Whenever your message conveys a lot of spatial info then video is the way to go. It certainly makes no sense to give a detailed text description of a complex graph or where to point and click your mouse when using some software application when video can do this much more effectively.

When it comes to spatial stuff a moving picture is worth a thousand words.